Prince Philip NOT Dead, Despite Shameful HollywoodLife Speculation

Prince Philip is not dead. But early Thursday morning, HollywoodLife grossly, shamefully, and inaccurately speculated Queen Elizabeth’s husband had died.

The webloid, always desperate to capitalize on search traffic, was apparently all too eager to seize on unfounded rumors that Prince Philip had died at age 95, despite a lack of evidence to back up such a serious claim. The site blared in a headline, “Is Prince Philip Dead? Twitter Freaks Over Buckingham Palace’s ‘Emergency Meeting.'” (See screengrab below.) There was no hard proof, however, that the meeting had anything to do with the Duke of Edinburgh passing away.

Nevertheless, HollywoodLies still saw fit to speculate, writing, “The reason for the ‘highly unusual’ meeting has yet to be revealed but many believe the queen’s husband Prince Philip has died and Twitter is freaking out over the terrifying possibility.” The outlet tried to point the finger at a number of Twitter users for stoking “fears,” but that does not excuse the online publication for trying to exploit the situation.

HollywoodLies likes to pretend it is a news resource. But real news resources don’t run half-baked stories on a public figure potentially being dead without solid reporting to back it up. The site even had the gall to ask its readers, “What do you think is going on at Buckingham Palace right now? Do you think that Prince Philip is okay?” Legitimate publications provide the answers to such questions. They don’t throw out theories and expect readers to give them the truth.

When, hours later, it was announced that Prince Philip, alive and well, was just stepping away from public engagements, HollywoodLies didn’t even bother to update its untrue death report. And the webloid’s new story doesn’t mention its previous untrue speculation about the royal dying, merely saying that “the Internet was sent into a frenzy regarding whether or not something had happened to Prince Philip” and “people feared the worst.”

The outlet is taking no responsibility for contributing to that “frenzy.” Of course, by that point, the publication probably already profited from its sensational report. HollywoodLies could’ve shown restraint with its original article, and could now show regret for peddling baseless rumors. But clearly traffic is more important to the site than accuracy and decency.